The Savannah Riverkeeper Tonya Bonitatibus has vowed to live on a raft in the middle of the Savannah River (near Augusta) until she gets 500 new members (or the equivalent in donations) for her organization. After five nights on the water she's gotten halfway.

I just called her and she sounded quite upbeat, which is how she always sounds. The wind that had threatened over the weekend had died down. She had to screw down her tarp to the raft to keep it in place. And she never stopped worrying during weekend storms about losing her portable toilet overboard.

The Savannah Riverkeeper has long been on a campaign to reduce the amount of mercury flowing into the river. It fingered an upriver chlorine factory as the major culprit. Today, the riverkeeper learned the Olin factory is switching to a mercury-free manufacturing process. Here's the press release:

"Olin Chemical announced today that they will stop using mercury in their chlorine production by 2012. The Savannah Riverkeeper has been pushing Olin to convert for over 6 years now, and couldn't be more proud with today’s announcement.

It didn't take long for this osprey to find the new nesting platform just installed on Johnny Mercer Blvd. by Turner's Creek. Boy Scout Joshua Johnson spent months getting the permits and permission needed -- along with donations -- to erect a more suitable new home for a pair of osprey nesting near a live wire. It went up late last month as an Eagle Scout project.

Holding hands on the beach is nothing new. Doing it with a hundred or more strangers makes it an event, however.

And that's the point of Hands Across the Sand, coming noon Saturday to Tybee's south beach. The Tybee effort is one of hundreds of synchronized events globally, aimed at raising awareness of the dangers of dirty fuels and the need to speed the transition to clean energy.

Sand gnats nearly picked up and carried away my 5-year-old last Friday. The weekend cold snap seems to have knocked them back a bit, but my yard in Parkside has been overrun this spring. A local birder reports she was gnat-bitten Monday while at the top of a 60-foot-tall observation tower. Is nowhere safe? Anybody else experience a heavy dose of biting midges lately?

Fire broke out at Cumberland Island National Seashore on Wednesday morning. At about 7 a.m. park officials were notified by Camden County 911 of visible smoke. When firefighters arrived on scene, they found a small fire burning in mixed vegetation including grasses and trees in the Willow Pond area.

Tybee recorded its fourth sea turtle nest of the season this morning. This one was near 7th Street. Volunteers walk the beach each morning looking for the tracks that indicate a nest. Sometimes, as in this case, they relocate the eggs to a higher dune area to give them a better chance of surviving.

Wilmington Island ninth-grader Joshua Johnson made this osprey nesting platform as an Eagle Scout project, finishing it up in November.

Last week local birder Brian DeRouen, who helped with the project, snapped this photo of the birds making themselves at home there. Success! DeRouen reports that they are mating. From this angle you just see the male, but I think we can take his word for it. Anyhow, those driving along Johnny Mercer Boulevard can be on the lookout for the soon-to-be expanding osprey family.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration today posted a wrap up of electric vehicle registrations. The accompanying map really tells the story for Georgia, where a strong tax incentive of up to $5,000 state tax credit for purchase or lease of an electric vehicle has propelled electric vehicles forward. Notice the Peach State has the darkest blue in the South, indicating electrics make up 2-3 of every 1,000 vehicles registered.

Tybee reported its ninth and tenth sea turtle nests on Friday. That's pretty good for late June. Last year the total was nine nests, the year before that it was 11. Loggerheads will continue nesting through July, so Tybee has a chance to break its record of 14 nests.

Tammy Smith, a school teacher who spends her summers as the sea turtle coordinator for Tybee, reported the ninth nest was in front of Marlin Monroe's and was moved just north of Center Street.